Membership Moving over to jcink

[Icewolf 258]

Currently my board is on proboards, but after looking through the directory and reading through some of the posts, it looks like people like jcink better and I was wondering if moving hosts to there would be better. It's not a big deal membership wise as there's only myself and another member who have even posted, but I don't like having to do the work again. (I didn't know about jcink when I made the board, I chose proboards because I'd used it in the past.) I don't like moving hosts either as I've done it in the past and seems to take something away from the site.

 

One problem I've had with proboards is that I have to use outside image hosts store images and I recently found out that the image host I'm using doesn't like users hotlinking (this seems odd, for an image hosting site, because why else would you use them?).

 

If I decide to do this, are there any support forums for skins, etc?

[Robmin 10]

I'd use whatever you're comfortable on. If you're comfortable on it use it, you may loose people who only like jCink but there's plenty of people out there who aren't so fussed on staying on one host. ((SHIELD is hosted on the white label version of proboards). Also for example I refuse to join jCink as I've had experiences that are bad enough I'd stay off jCink even if I was paid to join a jCink site.

 

Also what purpose are you hosting images outside of proboards for? If its for themes you can host all your images via proboards - I'm quite happy to walk you through that (I even use the acp sometimes to host my own avatars as well for my own characters!

Edited November 23, 2016 by Robmin

[VirusZero 176]

There are indeed support forums for Jcink. (The main one for Jcink is pretty good... Plus there are some others like shine, rpg-d has a lot of support for Jcink and here.)

 

I'd also recommend going through Jcink's wiki. (A lot of people seem to forget it exists or never know.) But it has a ton of useful info.

 

Though I'd recommend that you open a test forum (or even register a version of the site you want) just to play around with the settings and try it out for yourself. 

 

[Icewolf 258]

The problem with proboards is that you don't have storage space for hosting images other than avatars, so it has to be from an outside source, so I'll have to look for another place to hold them. I'm using imgur for it at the moment and I only just recently found out that they don't like forums linking images from them. I need to find a new image host where I can host them.

 

I have been playing around with jcink today, but I've never come across a format where is it so difficult to get the code on skins to work. It might be because I'm new jcink, but every time I try to edit a skin (using the colors area), it breaks the skin. When I look at the css, I can't see where the mistakes are in the code as they always appear to perfect to me. I'm not sure if I'll use it now as I just want something to work. (When I've posted on a jcink forum, I find that the bbcode always gets messed up if I need to go back and edit it, so I need to copy and paste the correct code and paste it back in again when I post it. I find proboards easier to use as that doesn't seem to happen.)

 

I does have features I like, though, such as the custom bbcode section, but again, it depends if I can get it work because when I've experimented with it, I find the first bbcode I made works, the second one doesn't, even though I followed all the instructions. I like the idea of using it for simple posting templates for people's characters because if they have more than one character, you can easily see which character they're posting as, but obviously, it depends on if I can get it to work. Members have had some difficulty with the proboard templates because there's too much code. 

 

I've rambled on a bit but I'm a bit disappointed that I've not been able to get the skins working properly.

[Robmin 10]

Icewolf You do!! It's what I use all the time!

 

To store skin and theme related images (or any images really) you need to go to Theme Manager, hover over a Theme (I sometimes have one called 'Images' disabled so no one else can access it as I haven't actually done anything to it) and then select images. If you scroll to the bottom you can add custom images to it 

 

I've put some images in so you can see what I mean. All you have to do is just click on the upload button

As for things like css and stuff I'm always happy to help out, as is anyone on support. Sometimes you just need someone else to throw an eye over it (heaven knows the amount of times I've forgotten something really small!)

[CovertSphinx 710]

To be perfectly honest, when it comes to skins, I've found Proboards way less stress inducing than Jcink. My CSS/html knowledge is extremely basic - I can't write it, but I can generally follow and guestimate line to line - so what I did was I downloaded a premade skin I liked and used that as a skeleton to build the skin I wanted. Proboards however I can bang out a new skin in a couple of hours if I'm just changing colors and creating images - not screwing with the layout frame.

 

I've too noticed a general exodus to Jcink, but having begun creating a site on its platform and experimenting with the tools and such, I really don't see any major features to get excited for. Except maybe the paid 18+ option. But I also still see a lot of proboards sites that are running at active paces, so I'd honestly consider it a trend rather than a survival necessity.

Like Virus said though, create a carbon copy on Jcink and play around with everything, see if you like the platform before making any commitments.

[Icewolf 258]

Well, I asked for help with the jcink skin on the creator's design forum and got no help from them, or anyone else, so, I think I'll stick with proboards. I've never really been that interested in 18+ rp so the fact that proboards doesn't allow it isn't a problem for me. (People who are always wanting to do smut weird me out anyways.) The thing is, when I'm editing a skin, I like to see how I'm editing it as I do the edits, so I know I've found the bits I wanted to change. If the software screws the code up, it doesn't really help me.

 

If I upload the images in that method, would I be able to change the theme and still keep the links intact?

 

I tried up loading an image. It doesn't seem to like pngs for some reason.

Edited November 26, 2016 by Icewolf